Every Last Fear(94)

We did it, Daddy. We did it.





CHAPTER 63


OLIVIA PINE


BEFORE

The elation at uncovering the truth, that her son wasn’t a murderer, the forgiveness from her husband for her infidelity, the pride in her daughter for never giving up, were overcome by a pain in Liv’s chest.

“I feel strange,” she said to Evan.

Evan examined her. His face turned to concern.

Her eyes closed. “I’m not—” When she opened them, she was on the floor. She tried to get up, but her limbs were frozen.

Her head fuzzy, she saw Evan stooped forward on the dining room table, his water bottle on its side, dripping onto the floor.

She didn’t understand what was happening. She tried to speak, but her mouth wouldn’t oblige.

Liv tried to reach out for her husband. But nothing would move. It was as if she were buried in sand.

Her thoughts were muddled. She started praying, but she didn’t know why. A blessing for Evan and each of her children.

She felt a stabbing pain in her abdomen, then a jolt of fear when she saw a pair of feet. The shoes were covered in surgical booties.

She was a puppet with its strings cut.

More darkness, then spots before her eyes.

Her thoughts floated away in the blue ocean. She looked at Evan again. Despite all of my mistakes, all of the grief, I would do it all over again.

And then things went black.





CHAPTER 64


EVAN PINE


BEFORE

Evan was a pile of deadweight strewn across the table. He could feel water on his arm, dripping on his leg, but he couldn’t move. He felt the wood from the tabletop on his cheek and watched in anger, in rage, as the man fiddled with his computer, his phone. Like he was running a program to wipe them clean. It was him, the man he and Maggie had tracked to the house. Evan tried to follow the man with his eyes, but even they wouldn’t move. The man bent down, out of Evan’s field of view.

When he rose, Liv was flung over his shoulder.

What are you doing? Let her go! The words were trapped inside him.

The man slowly lowered Liv to the couch, which was directly in Evan’s line of sight. The man folded her hands, which were limp. Lifeless.

No. No!

The man grabbed a book on the end table and positioned it on her chest.

Evan needed to find the strength, the will, to overcome whatever drug, whatever poison he’d ingested. He felt dampness on his legs. Then he understood. The water bottles. The man had drugged them all. He remembered Tommy’s sudden fatigue, Liv collapsing. His own blackout. His arm was spread out in front of him. He saw his fingers move. He realized that if he concentrated, put every bit of thought into it, he could move his hand. But he also knew he was fading fast. A pen was near his right hand. He watched his hand twitch. He needed to focus. His brain told his hand to grab the pen. He closed his eyes, visualized it. When he opened them, the pen was in his grasp.

The man was gathering the file Detective Sampson’s wife had given Liv. He put the file and water bottles in a trash bag. He wore latex gloves.

Evan’s vision blurred.

The man disappeared down the hallway, then returned.

Evan felt a wave of remorse. A wave of panic. A wave of consciousness fading.

He felt a poke on his shoulder. Evan’s body had no reaction, no reflexes. He was hoisted over the man’s shoulder.

Staring at the floor, the blood rushing to his head, he could see his dangling arm, the pen still clasped in his hand. Everything was far away, and for a surreal moment he wondered if the whole scene was a terrible nightmare.

Evan was feeling the pull of darkness. The world was a Pink Floyd video. He focused every cell in his brain on his right hand.

Then he told his body to do it, use every remaining muscle under his control. And he stabbed the pen into the man’s side. He heard a yell—“goddammit”—and the man dropped Evan to the floor.

The man’s face twisted in anger. He kicked Evan in the head. Evan saw stars. Blood was dripping into his eyes. The world was fading.

The man staggered out of Evan’s view again. When he returned, he had a kitchen towel pressed to his side, a large knife in his other hand.

He held the knife to Evan’s neck, the cold blade under his Adam’s apple. Terrified, Evan couldn’t even close his eyes now to brace himself for what was next. But then the man moved away from him, and Evan no longer felt the steel on his neck.

The man seemed to be examining the mark he’d left on Evan’s head from his boot.

He stood, hands on hips, studying Evan and the blood trail.

Then he seemed to make a decision. He carried Evan outside and dropped his limp body on the patio.

On his side, Evan could see everything. The man looked around, as if surveying whether Evan was visible from outside the property. He was gone again, but returned with what looked like food from the refrigerator. He poured leftover spaghetti meat sauce all over Evan. Dumped mac and cheese and bread near the gate. With his latex gloves covered in red from the spaghetti, he unlatched the gate for some reason, opened it a crack.

“I’ll give you that,” the man said to Evan. “You’ve got a lot of fight in you. We’ll see how you do with the dogs.”

Evan didn’t know what he meant by that.

At that moment, he was in the football bleachers holding Liv’s hand on a cold Friday night in October, the kids—Matt, Magpie, and somehow even Tommy—sitting beside them cheering at the spiral that had just connected and won the game. The quarterback tore off his helmet, his eyes searching the stands until he found them, pointing at Evan and his family, as if it were all for them.